Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The mayor of the city and county of Waterford, and his wife, are seated in the Gallery. I extend a very warm welcome to them and hope they have a good day here. Of course I am referring to Councillor Joe Kelly and his wife.

Today, the audiovisual room was packed as we had a delegation from the Social, Economic Environmental Forestry Association of Ireland, SEEFA. The event was particularly interesting because we again heard, which is a fact that we have heard since the Government targets for forestry were set, that the planting and harvesting targets are not being met. All forestry targets are verified by a dashboard of indicators, which is issued by the Department. We are off target and that is disappointing. Everyone on all sides of the House who spoke at the event talked about how disappointed they are with the targets not being reached. I am not in the blame game but we still must address the issue. We must increase our ambitious national targets, which the Government has set in the programme, and everyone who attended, including me, supports that idea.

There seems to be a big difference between how we treat forestry in the private sector, which is represented by SEEFA, and Coillte forestry. Clearly, the indicators differ which begs the question and I ask for a debate. Senator Hackett is the Minister of State who has overall responsibility for forestry and perhaps she could facilitate a debate when possible. We must get back on target and deliver because we are not doing so. I want us to address the issue of the inconsistency between the Coillte figures versus those of the private sector. It seems that Coillte performs better. Some people have suggested that Coillte has received favourable treatment and I do not suggest that but the private sector wants a fair chance.

I fully concur with Senator Flynn's excellent contribution about educational opportunities for Travellers. Indeed, there should be educational opportunities for everybody because we know that when people are given good educational opportunities early, and there are early interventions, then we excel, which is no different for the Traveller community. I support her call for a debate on education for Travellers in this House.